See the U.S.A. in a Corolla.

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Returning to Detroit for the first time in nearly a decade, I quite naturally wanted to use a typical—that is, scaled down—American car for further explorations of the great Middle West. Any American car at all; I'd leave the choice to Mr. Davis.

A bumpy bad-weather flight, a bit of slog­ging through the rain, a terrifying ride in a fogged-up, clapped-out van, and I was put out into a downpour next to a pleasant but bland coupe with a glass roof. Hmmm. Must be some kind of Ford, a logical descendant of the early-Fifties Skyliner, with its greenish transparent covering. But no, this must be a Chevrolet, with one of those dumb, made-up names starting with a "C." Well, if they can get people to accept Camaro and Chevelle, why not "Corolla"?

By God, it certainly acts the way a big Chevrolet is supposed to: I turn the key and it's immediately running smoothly, ready to take me anywhere, cosseted in plasticky pseudo-luxury. I haven't driven any Chevro­lets in at least ten years, but all the age-old features are here—evident mechanical reli­ability, side glass that thonks loosely in the doors, a stiffish throttle pedal, and too-easy power steering . . . the mixture as before, but brought down to a sensible size at long last.

All right, sure: I know it's not really a Chevrolet. The point, though, is that not only could it be, but it ought to be one. This is exactly the sort of car Chevrolet should have been building for the past five years.

Except. Except that this car, good as it is of its kind, is not what anyone should be building in the next five years. Four of us managed to fit with reasonable comfort for runs of 100 miles or so, but there's no getting around the fact that the antique driveline and solid axle take up far too much of the interior space, cramping the rear seats and raising the trunk floor to pickup heights.

All-new for 1980, the Corolla line has changed little for 1981. The radio is now housed in a swiveling console box, adding a new dimension to driver-passenger disputes over station selection. More important is an improvement in EPA fuel economy of 1 mpg, to 28, thanks to a taller final-drive ratio.

The seats are still a bit flat, a bit hard, but they do not induce backache and they do have a very clever "memory" feature that allows them to slide forward and then return to precisely the position and inclination they were adjusted to before you moved them. The glass roof is really very agreeable, and not even a ferocious thunderstorm could force the merest droplet through the seals.

The Yokohama radials, fat section and low profile or not, just don't have a lot of grip at the best of times, and at the least hint of dampness in the air they'll let the SR-5 slide as gracefully as Eric Heiden . . . right off the road if you're not extremely watchful. The brakes are all right, but no more than that. They stop the car without drama unless you try hard, at which point the rear wheels give a convincing screech as they lock up prema­turely. It's ironic that the Japanese penchant for imitating big American cars has brought them to the point of even providing the bare­ly-noticeable directional instability that is such a characteristic of the last two generations of our massive trundlers, but the insta­bility is there, scaled down in true proportion to the car's size. It's never a worry, but it is enough to make it impossible to imagine ever really enjoying the driving task. Which is quite another thing from enjoying a trip. The luminous interior, thanks to that trans­parent top; the full, clear sound of the stereo radio; the unobtrusive yet totally pervasive air conditioning; the low incidence of struc­tural noise; the knowledge that you're rolling along at about 28 mpg somewhere between the red 55 and the terminal 85 on the legible speedo—all combine to make Toyota-travel relaxing. The engine is not sluggish, but neither does it make you want to press on. A redline at 6000 is utter foolishness, since the engine is all through usefully accelerating the car by the time it hits five grand.

And the gearbox, like most Japanese ones a model of crisp and effortless shifting, somehow does not inspire use. In town you slip along smoothly with traffic, but not through it . . . there's not enough real punch in any gear to make you want to draft the Checkers on Chicago's Lakefront Drive.

So it's not a city sneaker, nor yet a rocket on the road. So why are Corollas the best-selling line of cars in the world, and why will they probably continue to be for some years to come, "world" cars or no? Because this is the quintessential suburban car. It's nice-enough looking to hold up your end of the Jones-keeping-up game, it's completely unobtrusive in use, it's practical for grocery hauling, and it's no strain to unload over the high sill if the packages are suburban-life sized.

It may be no-fun, but it is also no-problem, no-regret, low-budget motoring of the kind Americans have always wanted—and have always obtained, even if that meant going against our inborn reluctance to buy cars from towns only as far away from Detroit as Toledo or Kenosha. It's a good ordinary car, this SR-5.